Page:Claire Ambler (1928).djvu/138

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ing the Pastorale was meant for me? That's what you said, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps you meant your humming it just now was meant for me?"

"Yes—but I meant last night."

"Why, how could that be?" he asked, and he stared at her, seeming puzzled. "I don't know a dozen people in Raona; and certainly not anyone who could sing the Pastorale like that. Most assuredly, I don't know any woman who would be thinking of me when she did it. What do you mean, Miss Ambler?"

Claire stared at him incredulously; then she realized that a free, full voice in the moonlight over a Greek ruin might seem so much a part of the transfiguring night that it would not be recognized when it sang just audibly in the daytime and in another place, even though it sang the same song. The piquant little drama she had just played for him was a failure.

"You American ladies do like to mystify us slower mortals, I've observed," Orbison said. "How could that unknown singer have meant her song for me, Miss Ambler?"

"I——" She hesitated. She had an impulse to burst out at him: "I was your unknown singer! I